Anti-war protests begin in Asia-Pacific
WSWS.org
By our correspondents
15 October 2002
Recent protests against the planned US invasion of Iraq indicate a
growing level of opposition to the war throughout the Asia-Pacific
region. Newspaper opinion polls suggest a marked shift in public
sentiment
since the last assault on Iraq in 1991.
The largest protest occurred in Melbourne,
Australia last Sunday, when
more than 30,000 took to the streets, voicing their opposition to the
US war and the unconditional support given to it by Australian Prime
Minister John Howard. A sea of banners and placards condemned the
Bush and Howard governments, with slogans including "No blood for
oil" and "Regime change begins at home".
The rally, which was called by the Victorian Peace
Network, a coalition
of 50 student, church, political, trade union and other organisations,
attracted many more participants than organisers had anticipated. The
numbers were swelled by workers, youth and professional people who
joined the protest after hearing of the terror bombing in Bali the
night before, intent on demonstrating their concern that the US-led "war
against terrorism" would only lead to more such tragedies.
On October 5-6, some 500 demonstrators, including students,
parliamentarians and lawyers, rallied outside the Pine Gap joint
US-Australian military base near Alice Springs in central Australia.
Established in 1968, Pine Gap is a surveillance
and satellite relay
station
that will provide crucial intelligence for the planned strike on Iraq.
Northern Territory police blocked access to the base, making repeated
and violent attacks on the protestors and arresting 17 people.
A week earlier, on September 28, several thousand people marched
through both Melbourne and Sydney, opposing the Howard
government's plans to join any US-led assault.
Across the Tasman Sea, protests were held in two major
centres in New Zealand
on the same day. In Auckland up to 3,000 people demonstrated
carrying banners and placards declaring, "No war in Iraq" and demanding
the US respect international law. Many watching the march demonstrated
their approval by giving a thumbs up or by clapping.
A range of speakers who condemned US war plans and Israel's
continuing brutal assault on the Palestinians addressed the rally that
followed. The speakers included Rotem Dan Mor, a conscientious
objector who had been recently jailed for refusing to serve in the
Israeli armed forces. Martin Hutt from the Iraqi Medical Alert Support
Group
said sanctions that had been imposed on Iraq for the past 12 years had
caused the deaths of thousands of children and "were themselves a
weapon of mass destruction".
On the same day, about 180 people rallied in Cuba Mall in the centre of
Wellington. Leaflets condemning the war were distributed to passersby
and the rally was addressed by a series of speakers. Some criticised
the NZ unions for failing to take a stand in opposition to the war.
In Indonesia
on October 8, more than 200 youth, members of various
large Islamic organisations, waved banners outside the US Embassy in
Jakarta with messages including "No More Blood." The demonstrators
issued a statement appealing to the American people to ask their
government to find a peaceful solution to the Iraq issue.
On the same day, in South
Korea, about 50 anti-war activists gathered
in front of the US Embassy in Seoul. The protesters, representing 46
civic
and religious activist groups, issued a statement saying US plans to
attack Iraq could not be justified "and will instead threaten world
security".
Earlier, on October 2, 1,000 students marched in Seoul, condemning the
continued presence of 37,000 US troops in South Korea. Chanting
"Let's drive out US troops," they stomped on two large American flags
with skulls drawn on them and carried signs that read: "We oppose US
war against Iraq." Later, 300 students fought 30 policemen who blocked
them from breaking through the locked steel gate of the main US
military base in Seoul.
The students defied President Kim Dae-Jung who, just hours earlier, had
denounced a series of protests against the US military presence. "We
must understand that the US military's presence in the Korean Peninsula
is indispensable for our security, peace on the Korean Peninsula and a
balance of forces in northeast Asia," Kim said.
In a protest that received almost no media coverage,
Philippines
students demonstrated outside the US Embassy in Manila on October 4,
carrying placards such as: "US government No.1 terrorist".
It was the second recent anti-war protest outside the Manila embassy.
On September 27, more than 100 church workers from 22 countries
linked arms along the road in front of the building, urging a halt to
"US state terrorism" worldwide. Nuns and church leaders held up placards
reading "No to US invasion on Iraq" and "Justice, not war" as anti-riot
police stood by.
The group issued a statement calling the "war on terror" an
"opportunistic use of violence to consolidate and expand US economic,
political, cultural and military hegemony" that would undermine human
rights and civil liberties of people in targeted countries.
On October 4, about 200 US and other foreign citizens who live in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
held a vigil for peace. Under banners reading
"WarNot In Our Name!" the participants read a "Not In Our Name"
pledge aloud and took signed copies of the pledge to the US
Ambassador's residence.
No anti-war demonstrations have been reported in
Malaysia, where the
Mahathir government has exploited the Bush administration's "war on
terrorism" to suppress its own political opponents, using the notorious
Internal Security Act. On October 8, in a sign of the government's
concern about public disquiet, Youth and Sports Minister Hishamuddin
Hussein told delegates at the East Asian Economic Summit in Kuala
Lumpur that his government was "for the US, if it is a force for good,"
but "cannot support the US if it pursues the course of unilateralism
with scant regard for world opinion".
In Japan, polls
published in the press have found little public support
for strikes against Iraq. The Asahi Shimbun newspaper last month
reported
that its telephone survey found 77 percent of people opposed to a US
military attack, with only 14 percent in favour. Asked whether Japan
should cooperate with the United States if it began an assault on
Baghdad, 69 percent said no, while just 20 percent said yes.
The poll pointed to the contrast between public opinion this time and
during past US-led military actions. An October 2001 poll showed 46
percent support for that month's attack on Afghanistan, with 43 percent
opposed. In a February 1991 poll, just after the start of the Gulf War,
51 percent supported the attack on Iraq with 35 percent opposed.
Newspaper interviews revealed concern that a war will only increase the
danger of terrorism. "It's better if they don't go to war," Toshiro
Kobayashi, a shopkeeper in Tokyo, said. "It would be one thing if war
would solve the problem, but terrorist acts will happen again."
The mayor of Hiroshima, one of the two Japanese cities obliterated by
US atomic bombs in 1945, is currently visiting the United States,
urging Washington not to go to war. Interviewed at the commencement of
his
trip, Tadatoshi Akiba called on the US to cut down its nuclear weapons
stockpile. This would raise Washington's credibility in urging other
nations to not build their own weapons, he said.
More than 200,000 people in Hiroshima were killed and hundreds of
thousands more sickened in the US atomic bombing of the city on August
6, 1945. A second atomic bomb on Nagasaki three days later killed at
least 74,000 people. On August 6, addressing 45,000 people at an
anniversary commemoration, Akiba warned: "The US government has
not been given the right to impose a 'Pax Americana' and to decide the
fate of the world ... In this environment, only the weak become
victims, many of them women, children and the elderly."
Vietnam, another country subjected to horrific US bombing, has
officially protested "against any military activity against Iraq aimed
at
overthrowing the government of President Saddam Hussein. Interference by
external forces to change the political regime of a country constitutes
a gross
violation of international law and the UN Charter and is unacceptable."
Responding to last week's US Congress vote to give President Bush full
authority to use military force against Iraq, a foreign ministry
spokeswoman said the Vietnamese people were "very concerned about
this development".
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/oct2002/war-o15.shtml
